NEWS

Low Energy: A House bill nibbles at the edges of a bigger problem.

08/03/2007

The Washington Post

Debate on the long-awaited House energy bill is due to start today. And a vote on the 700-page "New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act" is expected to follow sometime tonight. Why cram it all into one day? Because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is determined to make good on her promise to get H.R. 3221 introduced and passed before the August recess, which will begin immediately after the vote. Considering that the bill has not changed much since 11 committees last month reported out the legislation that makes up the energy package, it might not be too late a night. But it could be yet another missed opportunity.

We've lauded the good things in this bill before. The investments in renewable energy, the incentives for manufacturers to make and for taxpayers to purchase appliances and vehicles that "push the boundaries of efficiency," and the federal government leading by example in the drive to cut carbon emissions are all good. What's especially good are the funds made available to demonstrate the commercial viability of carbon capture and sequestration. The United States sits atop the world's largest reserves of coal, a chief source of greenhouse gases. Finding a way to pump and lock the heat-trapping gas underground would not only be an enormous environmental breakthrough, but it would also be a technological advance that could then be sold overseas, particularly to China, which is overtaking the United States as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

 

But here's what's wrong with the House bill: It contains no corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) boost and no renewable energy standard. Despite compromises by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the major support he was able to garner, Ms. Pelosi opted not to allow a vote on his amendment to improve vehicle fuel efficiency, for the first time in 30 years, to 35 mpg by 2019. Because the Senate saw fit to pass a CAFE increase, the fight will go to a conference committee, where lying in wait will be Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who last month successfully quashed Mr. Markey's earlier effort to add CAFE standards to the package.

Standing a better chance, as of last night, is the push for a renewable energy standard. An amendment from Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Todd R. Platts (R-Pa.) would require utilities to derive 20 percent of their electricity from wind, biomass, solar or geothermal power by 2020. The fact that the provision was not a part of the original package and may slide in under the wire shows how tough it has been to bring this worthwhile measure to a vote.

In the end, doing all these things is better than doing nothing to get Americans to conserve energy and to get industry to move to more efficient ways of doing business. But they don't get at the hard choices that are going to have to be made for this country to become actively involved in slowing the advance of global warming. That will have to wait until the fall, when several bills championing a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions will be debated in the House and Senate. Until then, anything Congress does related to climate change and energy independence is merely avoidance of the bigger, more urgent, problem.